Tag Archives: heroine involved with other man

Historical Romance Review: Passion’s Wicked Torment by Melissa Hepburne

*Passion’s Wicked Torment,* Melissa Hepburne, Pinnacle Books, 1980, cover art Bill Maugham

Spoiler Alert & Warning: This Review and/or This Book May Offend You (Maybe) ⚠

3 Stars

Pinnacle Books‘ Passion’s Wicked Torment is a balls-to-wall 20th-century bodice ripper set in the gangster era during American Prohibition. From New York to Chicago, from Alaska to Europe, this book hops around the globe and features lots of mutually lusty sex scenes, rapes, and gangbangs. It stars a heroine so stupid and dumb, she could only have been written by Mr. Melissa Hepburne himself, the author of the blockbuster bestseller (I’m not kidding, it sold over a million copies!) Passion’s Proud Captive.

Aren’t Do-Do Birds Extinct?

Our heroine, Kristin Fleming, is perhaps an IQ point or two higher than Passion’s Proud Captive’s brainless Jenny-fair, whose stupidity made that book a hilarious blast. Now, I am not insulting our resilient sisters and aunts and mothers and grandmothers of the past when I refer to Hepburne’s heroines as too-stupid-to-live. This so-called historical fictional romance plays fast and loose with history, waffles around on the romance, and is HEAVY on the fiction. I doubt many women in reality who were capable of dressing themselves or had the mental know-how to expel their body wastes in a bowl of some sort ever inserted themselves into the moronic situations these caricatures of female protagonists did.

Here the heroine’s so dumb, and the action so predictable, yet somehow compelling, it’s like watching multiple gory car-wrecks in slow-mo, one after another, after another.

Kristin’s brother Chad gets kidnapped by a bunch of mafiosos. She has the brilliant idea to infiltrate a mobster’s club to find out where he is. Of course, Kristin has to get a makeover and change her persona. She’s a long-haired, virginal good girl, and that won’t do as she plans to sink her hooks into the head Capo, become his moll, and use her wiles to find her brother.

So she enters the club with her bobbed hair, slinky dress, and new fake identity & cozies up to the owner of a club, this hood, Dallas Hunter, to find who kidnapped her brother. With her gorgeous blonde looks, it’s as easy as cream pie to get into his bed. But Hunter gets angry with her when Kristin asks too many questions about his illegal biz while in bed. Newbie mistake; pillow talk is for AFTER sex, not during!

This is the Plot? For Real?

Dallas Hunter is a real Eye-talian with a dash of British panache. The next morning at breakfast:

Hunter ordered for both of them: scrambled eggs, spaghetti, sausage and buttered rolls. He also ordered kippers for himself, a smoked fish that was an English specialty.

Kristen sort of becomes Hunter’s gal, but she’s looking for bigger fish because she needs to get to the ultimate leader to find out what happened to her brother. Ironman is the top cat, and if anyone knows where bro-bro is, it would be he. So despite her burgeoning feelings for Hunter, she pursues Ironman, and that plan falls apart in spectacular fashion.

For you see, our hero Hunter is really a Fed, working undercover to infiltrate the mob. He, like Kristin, wants to find her brother, who is being held prisoner for reasons I forget but don’t really matter as this plot is (I’m not sorry to use this word) retarted (the misspelling is intentional).

Ironman finds out Kristin is not who she says she is, so he does some pretty nasty things to her. He has her drugged, up, chained to a bed, and forced into a vile porno with a sadistic creep. Things go from worse to worst for our heroine with a plan that’s not a plan.

First Plan: Kristen gets kidnapped, Hunter has to save her.

Second Plan: Kristen gets kidnapped, Hunter has to save her.

Third Plan: Kristen gets kidnapped, Hunter has to save her.

Oh, did I repeat myself? Well, that’s what this story does, too.

North to Alaska

Through various convoluted contrivances, Kristin finds herself in Alaska, where she meets a great bear of a man, McShane, a former Canadian Mountie. She and McShane enter a partnership to start a gambling house. They also get involved in a love affair with each other. McShane was the most decent character in this alleged romance novel and should have been the hero. This was the third Hepburne book I’ve read, so going by pattern, it seems s/he was setting McShane up to be the hero for a next book that never materialized (Hunter, this book’s male protagonist, and had been the “other” guy in a previous novel).

Really, in this brief portion of the book, Hepburne shows s/he’s capable of writing decent characters and a somewhat believable romance.

This was incredible. [Kristin] was surprising herself as well as McShane. Not only by her professions of caring for him deeply, but also by her strength and refusal to submit quietly. She felt more like a real woman now than she ever had before, a strong-willed woman who knew what she wanted and went after it.

Ah, if only. Kristen should have stayed in Alaska. But remember, she has to find her brother, Mr. MacGuffin. So she returns to the mobsters’ world, and she and McShane buy a ship to use for illegal gambling and drinking off the coast of Long Island.

Alas, those plans fall apart, as the mob doesn’t like competition, and Hunter again comes to the rescue. More plot shit is flung at the proverbial walls.

Kristin sells her share of the casino ship to McShane and flees to Europe to party her sorrows away.

A Gary Stu Supporting Character?

An unusual aspect of this book is that the author Melissa Hepburne, whose real name is Craig Broude, literally self-inserts himself into the story to have a gang-bang sex scene with the heroine. It’s tongue-in-cheek but also rather sad, as Kristin drinks, parties, and sleeps with various men in an attempt to forget all the hurts committed upon her body and spirit.

When Kristin finds out that Hunter is looking for her, she asks Broude, or Brady, as he’s called in the story, to make him scarce:

Would Brady succeed in throwing him off her trail? Probably, she thought. Her American friend was a very smart man and could be extremely cunning and crafty when he put his mind to it. The reward she promised him would certainly motivate him to do his devious best, that she was sure of.

Eventually, Kristin finds her way back to the States, sober and resolved. Dallas Hunter is there for her, and the two rekindle their romance (What romance, you might ask? Don’t. Just roll with it.).

But uh-uh-uh, there are still evil goons after them. Fortunately, the true hero of this book, McShane, who truly loves that silly do-do bird, shows up in his boat and saves the day, allowing for Hunter and Kristin to live their lives happily ever after.

Oh, and as for the missing Chad, the brother Kristin was searching for, and the whole reason she was embroiled in this ridiculous mess? Ignominously killed off partway through the book and long-forgotten by the end.

Final Analysis of Passion’s Wicked Torment

Melissa Hepburne only published four romances, but they were successful enough to put some serious cash into Craig Broude’s pockets. Good for him, I say. For despite being lackluster love stories, they were some seriously whacktastic reads I was glad to experience. Passion’s Wicked Torment, his final bodice ripper, wasn’t as fun or shocking as Passion’s Proud Captive, his first, so that it might have been a case of diminishing returns. Still, for the not-easily offended reader, these books made for wild rides.

Reviewed by Introvert Reader

Historical Romance Review: The Frost and the Flame by Drusilla Campbell

2 Replies

The Frost and the Flame by Drusilla Campbell
Rating:

Published: 1980
Illustrator: Harry Bennett
Published by: Gallen Books, Pocket Books
Genres: Historical Romance, Bodice Ripper
Pages: 360
Format: Paperback
Buy on: Amazon, AbeBooks, Open Library (BORROW FOR FREE)
Reviewed by: Introvert Reader

Spoiler Alert ⚠

The Book

Drusilla Campbell‘s The Frost and the Flame is one of those naughty bodice rippers where the heroine is separated for a long period of time from her true love, the dull, twatwaffle of a hero, and instead spends more time sexing it up with the lusty, evil villain.

For the record, this is just the kind of bodice ripper I like: one that does not take itself seriously and knows how to throw crazy tropes at you, so you’ll keep the pages turning, even if the story is not really romantic.

The Crazy Plot and Characters

I loved the Russian setting of The Frost and the Flame. The heroine’s growth as a character was fun to watch. Alas, the hero, Alexei, is exciting as dry toast. It’s the villain who is the star here: charismatic, evil, and blond!

Eighteen-year-old Katiana Donova is a convent-bred naif. While traveling across the cold depths of Russia, she and her companions are attacked.

The dashing blond Prince Oleg saves her. The Prince seems so sweet and kind at first, but he soon proves to be a lustful rogue. Nothing will stop him from possessing Tanya.

Prince Oleg is seriously obsessed with Tanya, but he’s not in love. He’s not capable of true feeling. Don’t dare think the villain in The Frost and the Flame has a heart

Even the demonic, baby-killing Robert Bellesme of Anita Mills’s Lady Of Fire was more of a romantic softy than Oleg. Oleg loves to abuse and use his Tanya, but he does not care about her. He degrades her in awful sorts of ways, so make no mistake about finding redemption in him!

Plus, the dude is going crazy. It’s hinted that Oleg has a brain tumor or something because his headaches make him act more insane.

Even as Oleg will do whatever it takes to make Tanya his, he also has a cruel and jealous wife who will stop at nothing to see Tanya pay. Poor Tanya suffers so much through this book. It’s one catastrophe after another.

But wait, there’s more! There’s a twisted secret–

No, no, I won’t say. I spoil enough romances; I won’t spoil another. Although I’d hardly call this bodice-ripper a true romance.

As for the hero? Well, Tanya spends much of it separated from her boring Alexei. He vows to have his Tanya and pines for her, however, ends up having affairs of his own. Not much of a hero, but Tanya loved him, so I tried not to dislike him. There’s not much to like or dislike about Alexei. He’s just there.

The Unconventional Ending to an Unconventional “Romance”

At the conclusion of The Frost and the Flame, Tanya is reunited with her beloved Alexei. Sadly, Tanya has been so hurt by Oleg’s torments that marriage is not on her agenda right away. She loves Alexei, yes, although wants to have a deeper relationship with him before taking it further.

Final Analysis of The Frost and the Flame

So this is a unique romance, The Frost and the Flame, has a Happy For Now ending, not necessarily a Happily Ever After.

Am I ok with that? Bodice rippers occupy a strange corner in Romancelandia, where they can do just about anything. As long as it’s an optimistic ending and the book was fun, I don’t mind. This one was.

Oleg, the psycho villain, was the star of the show. I enjoyed watching his mental and spiritual decline while Tanya grows from an innocent girl to a mature woman. This may not be everyone’s idea of an entertaining romance; however, I consider myself a satisfied reader. I’m holding on to this one!

Rating Report Card
Plot	4.5
Characters	4.5
Writing	4.5
Chemistry	4
Fun Factor	5
Cover	4
Overall:	4.4

Synopsis

Convent-bred and seductively beautiful, eighteen-year-old Katiana Donova was journeying across Russia when suddenly a band of murderous serfs attacked her traveling party. Soon she was rescued from her frozen hiding place by none other than the dashing Prince Oleg Romanov — only to become the object of his insatiable lust.

Helpless to defend herself against this cruel aristocrat, Katiana had no choice by to become his frigid, taunting mistress — despite the vindictive jealousy of Oleg’s wife, Princess Elizabeth.

But Katia longed only for Alexei, the gentle handsome nobleman whose very soul seemed to burn with a quiet passion — for his people and — could she hope? — for her.

Ravished and betrayed, Katia would eventually escape Oleg’s clutches to a country half a world away. But would she ever be reunited with the man who could melt her frozen passion with the glorious flame of his love?
The Frost and the Flame by Drusilla Campbell

The Frost and the Flame is available for borrowing for free at the Internet Archive

Category Romance Review: Sirocco by Anne Mather

2 Replies

Sirocco by Anne Mather
Rating:

Published: 1983
Illustrator: Len Goldberg
Imprint or Line: Harlequin Presents #683
Published by: Harlequin
Genres: Category Romance, Contemporary Romance
Pages: 192
Format: eBook, Paperback
Buy on: Amazon
Reviewed by: Introvert Reader

The Book

Sirocco is a solid read, worthy of my time, but not without its flaws. It’s consistent with the kind of writing I’m used to when I pick up an Anne Mather book.

An Anne Mather Harlequin Presents is what I consider to be an “old reliable.” She wrote romances that are almost guaranteed to entertain me, or if not, then at least not bore me. Although usually satisfactory, Mather rarely wrote books I would place on an all-time best list. Sometimes she does surprise me, so it makes reading her works an experience to look forward to.

In this category romance, Anne Mather employs one of her commonly used tropes: a hero in pursuit of an already “attached” woman.

The Stalker vs. the User

One night, Rachel Fleming comes across a man whom she thinks requires help. The man is slumped in his car, just sleeping, but Rachel doesn’t know that. He turns out to be Alexis Roche, a blond half-Arab, half-French, sheik ruler of a tiny nation (Rachel doesn’t know that either until later).

Alexis is instantly intrigued by his would-be savior and begins to stalk her.

Seriously.

If it’s not him, he has his “people” trail her. Alexis finds out where Rachel lives, where she works, and that she’s currently engaged to a wealthy man, Roger what’s-his-name. He’s a spoiled “mama’s boy” who uses the heroine for his own selfish desires.

Seriously.

I read this on Kindle but knew it was written long ago. The copyright date is 1983, so it’s “reasonable” to assume social values here would be similar to those found in the early 1960s as this is an old-school, vintage Harlequin Presents.

What blew me away was even though the heroine was a virgin, she gets sexually intimate with her fiance:

“Roger was singularly old-fashioned when it came to relationships, and although he had taught her ways to please him without their going to bed together, they had never actually made love.”

Then Roger tells Rachel later during a passionate moment together:

“”Oh, sweetheart, I’ve missed you,’ he murmured, drawing her reluctant hands to his body. ‘Hmm, that feels good. Go on, go on: make love to me.'”

I was, as they say, in these books, gobsmacked. The heroine WAS doing what I thought she was doing! How Anne Mather got that past the editors in 1983 is beyond me, but sometimes, as I said, Mather does surprise me.

sirocco alt — *Sirocco*, Ane Mather, Mills and Boon, 1983, artist unknown

The Rest of the Plot

Anyway, Alexis is able to manipulate his way into Rachel’s life, hawking her, hounding her, and preying upon her until every aspect is turned completely upside down. Alexis is typical of Mather’s heroes, self-centered, arrogant, and determined to have his way.

She also describes the awful clothing her characters wear, so you can imagine the hero in his velvet suit, his silk shirt unbuttoned down to his navel to reveal his masculine, suitably hairy chest as he smokes cheroots while he contemplates seducing the heroine.

Alexis manages to blackmail Rachel into his arms as he uses her father’s outstanding gambling debts to force her to do whatever he wants. Alexis then whisks her away to his little sheikdom, where he has his way with her (and she with him), all while Alexis’ family looks upon Rachel with scorn.

About the heroine, Rachel. She tries to carry herself as a confident, modern woman, disdainful of the type who’d sit back and allow a man to run her roughshod. However, many awful characters weigh her down: her fiance, her father, Alexis’ family members, and Alexis himself. Rachel poses as this strong character but is she really?

Alexis is certainly the take-charge type, and though she opposes him, in the end, we all know how this winds up.

Final Analysis of Sirocco

I sort of hated this book and liked it at the same time. I enjoyed Alexis’ pursuit of Rachel, although it’s hard to see when desire turns to love with Mather’s male characters. Was this just a power play for Alexis?

Rachel attempts to fight for the right to live life on her terms. She’s just not very good at it. I had mixed feelings about this one, but there was something so engaging about the tale I read it super quickly.

As I feel now, it’s a 3.5-star read, which is what I usually rate an Anne Mather book.

3.5 Stars

Synopsis

Rachel Fleming wished she had never stopped to help the stranger in distress. But it was too late now. The tables had turned.

Alexis Roche was no helpless victim. He was a seasoned hunter committed to the chase. He found out Rachel’s name, address, even where she worked and set out to systematically change her whole life. First he toyed with her engagement, and then he closed in on he dangerously frazzled emotions.

Rachel’s mind bid her to run…but her heart was tiring from the chase.
—SIROCCO by ANNE MATHER

Historical Romance Review: Kathleen’s Surrender by Nan Ryan

2 Replies

Kathleen's Surrender by Nan Ryan
Rating:

Published: 1983
Illustrator: Walter Popp
Imprint or Line: Zebra Historical Romance
Published by: Kensington
Genres: Civil War Romance, Historical Romance
Pages: 462
Format: Paperback, eBook
Buy on: Amazon, AbeBooks
Reviewed by: Blue Falcon

SPOILER ALERT ⚠

The Book

Kathleen’s Surrender by Nancy Henderson Ryan–known better these days as Nan Ryan–is without question one of the best, most emotional romance novels I’ve ever read.

This review is based on the Zebra print version of the book published back in 1983.

The Plot

Part One

As the book opens, we meet the Beauregard family of Natchez-on-the-Hill, Mississippi. Patriarch Louis Antoine, Matriarch Abigail Howard Beauregard, and the heroine of the book, their only child, daughter Kathleen Diana Beauregard.

At the start, Kathleen is a starry-eyed 15-year-old who loves her Southern Belle life. She soon meets a handsome, wealthy man named Dawson Blakely and falls quickly and fully in love with him. They fall in love and want to get married.

However, Louis is vehemently against their relationship, although he and Abigail are nice to Dawson. Louis’ objection: Dawson’s ancestry isn’t as blue-blooded as the Beauregards’ is; Dawson’s ancestors are rather notorious people.

Louis tells Dawson they can’t marry, and Dawson loves Kathleen enough to let her go without telling her that her father is the one who’s trying to keep them apart. They do have an intimate encounter before they part, which results in Kathleen’s pregnancy.

To avoid losing face, Kathleen marries a doctor named Hunter Alexander to give their child–a son named Scott–a father.

Dawson, meanwhile, goes to Europe to drown his sorrows over losing Kathleen in drink and women.

Part Two

As time goes on–the book encompasses 10 years–Kathleen realizes she’s not in love with Hunter and freezes him out–emotionally and sexually. Dawson eventually returns to America while Kathleen realizes that she and Dawson still love each other. They become involved again.

Hunter sees them kissing and decides, when the Civil War begins, to join the Confederate Army, ostensibly to die in combat to avoid living with a broken heart, knowing that Kathleen will never love him the way she loves Dawson. Dawson also does his part for the Confederacy, acting as a blockade runner on one of his many ships.

Part Three

As the war goes on, Kathleen later realizes she does love Hunter and goes to the frontlines of the war in Vicksburg to be with him-they make love. On the way back to Natchez, Kathleen and her servant are set upon by Union soldiers, one of whom tries to rape her. That is prevented by Dawson, who is shot and seriously wounded in the process.

Then Kathleen decides she wants to be with Dawson again. She finds out later that Hunter is listed as a casualty of the war and decides to go ahead and marry Dawson.

Things don’t end there, but I won’t reveal all of what happens.

It’s Complicated

While you might think that Kathleen is a flighty and self-centered five-letter-word-for-female-dog flipping back and forth between her husband and her lover, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Ms. Ryan does a tremendous job exploring and describing the emotions Kathleen, Hunter, and Dawson are going through. None of the three are villains, nor are they trying to deliberately hurt each other. They’re just three people caught in a love triangle that none of them want, but they also can’t get out of easily.

I felt each of their joys and sorrows, and it is an emotional rollercoaster that touched every one of my emotions.

Sex

There are some sex scenes, and although they are multiple pages long, they are not overly graphic.

Violence

Since the latter half of the book takes place in the Civil War, there is some violence. Most of it is not graphically described, except for the scene in which Dawson shoots and kills Kathleen’s attempted rapist. That is graphically described.

Final Analysis of Kathleen’s Surrender

One of the most important things that a book–or tv show or movie–has to do to get and keep my attention is to make me care about the people I’m watching/reading about. Ms. Ryan does exactly that. She made me care about Kathleen, Hunter, and Dawson, and it was incredible to read this book.

Kathleen’s Surrender by Nan Ryan is one of my favorite novels ever.

BTW, on Amazon, where I first posted this review, Ms. Ryan wrote to me to tell me that she appreciated my review!

5 Stars

Rating Report Card
Plot	5
Characters	5
Writing	5
Chemistry	4.5
Fun Factor	5
Cover	4.5
Overall:	4.8

Synopsis

PROMISE OF LOVE
“I know that you will fall madly, helplessly in love with me,” dashing Dawson Blakely murmured in Kathleen’s delicate ear. Though she knew it was wrong to encourage the gambler’s attentions, the curvaceous beauty couldn’t keep her heart from racing nor stop the blush that spread from her velvety cheeks to her full, heaving bosom.

DREAM OF DESIRE
The innocent young woman tried not to feel the virile man’s hard body next to her soft skin; she knew she ought to slap away the strong hands encircling her tiny waist. But she had always wondered what it was like to fall in love. Without a second thought, she yielded to the magic of passion’s splendor and swooned to the ecstasy of KATHLEEN’S SURRENDER
Kathleen’s Surrender by Nan Ryan

Category Romance Review: No Gentle Possession by Anne Mather

Leave a reply

*No Gentle Possession,* Anne Mather, Harlequin, 1980, Don Sinclair cover art

Harlequin Presents #105

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW 🙂

3 1/2 stars

Anne Mather‘s No Gentle Possession consists of two plot points she’s employed many times in her works like Stormspell: separated lovers and cheating.

The Plot

Well, in this book, it wasn’t so much a case of separated lovers as two people who briefly dated in the past. The heroine broke it off with the hero when she thought his relationship with his young stepmother was a bit too close for comfort and creepy.

Karen Sinclair likes her life just how it is. She has a job and a boyfriend and lives in a nice little town. Sure she’s not wealthy like some other families in town, but she’s happy. What more could she ask for? To her shock and dismay, she meets up again with Alexis Whitney, a man from a well-heeled family she’d been involved with years earlier and never forgot. For Alexis, however, their relationship hadn’t been significant (they didn’t have sex), so he doesn’t even remember Karen.

Karen’s pride is a bit wounded, although she tries to put on a brave face. While Alexis may not recall their time together, he seeks to remedy that by starting a new relationship. So he begins pursuit of Karen, which baffles and insults her while intriguing her at the same time. But she has that steady boyfriend who’s a better suit for her than the love-them-and-leave-them type. Besides, Alexis’s stepmother is still in the picture and still seems to have an unseemingly interest in him.

Nevertheless, Alexis always seems to be wherever she goes, and soon enough, Karen is having those old feelings for him. Despite her commitment to her current boyfriend, she finds it hard to resist Alexis’s aggressive passes at her. I sort of wanted to give Karen a good kick in the rear to get her to wake up; she’s so inconsistent in her feelings. Even so, I like Alexis as a hero. He was an arrogant douchebag, but an arrogant douche bag with style and charisma.

Fun Fact

No Gentle Possession was—like many other HPs—offered free with dish detergent:

photo No Gentle Possession FREE.jpg — *No Gentle Possession* free with Ivory Liquid Detergent

Anne Mather must have been the bomb back in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her books were often reprinted to great success, and one of her Harlequins, Leopard in the Snow, was made into a movie starring Mr. 2001 Space Odyssey Canadian cutie, Keir Dullea. Despite being a box-office failure, it was quite a big deal for a little category romance to be made into a major motion picture.

Final Analysis of No Gentle Possession

Anne Mather was one of Harlequin Presents most popular authors, especially in the line’s early years. She rarely disappointed, and No Gentle Possession is a good oldie romance. There are a few loose ends with the stepmother, and the conclusion is a bit abrupt, but all in all, I liked this one.

SPONSORED AD

Historical Romance Review: Surrender to Love by Rosemary Rogers

Leave a reply

Surrender to Love by Rosemary Rogers
Rating:

Published: 1982
Illustrator: Unknown
Published by: Avon
Genres: Historical Romance, Bodice Ripper, Victorian Era Romance
Pages: 612
Format: eBook, Paperback
Buy on: Amazon, AbeBooks
Reviewed by: Introvert Reader

MILD SPOILERS 😉

The Book

Rosemary Rogers, the “Grande Dame of Bodice Rippers,” wrote a few exceptional epic romances. Alas, Surrender to Love wasn’t one of them. It’s my least liked of her books I’ve read so far.

The Heroine

Surrender to Love begins in the hot, sultry nation of Ceylon, where the British heroine Alexa lives. Alexa is so spunky. She hates convention. Why-oh-why do rules have to be so strict for women, and why couldn’t she have been born a man?

Look, I like feminist heroines in my bodice rippers. A meek, wishy-washy heroine in one is no fun, but Alexa… It just never ended with her. Everything was political. That attitude is very draining.

But the worst aspect about her is reading her inner monologues. They’re jam-packed with randomly italicized words, sometimes just a couple per page, sometimes dozens. It made me crazy.

Alexa is one of those wild heroines who courts danger and is susceptible to intense mood swings. I got the suspicion it was the author’s menopausal mania slipping in. (I’m feeling it myself these days.)

I got a strong sense of Alexa’s mental instability with her long internal rants. Or when she’s scratching the hero Nicholas’s face off. Or sobbing hysterically in front of him. Basically, every scene underscores her fluctuating moods.

The writing was erratic. For example, POV changes without warning, just within one paragraph.

And did I mention those italics?

The Plot

Alexa wants to be independent in a society constricted by stultifying rules. She meets Nicholas Dameron, who’s as wild as she is.

Their relationship is a tug-and-pull game that goes on for too long. There’s no consummation until page 337 of this 612-page brick, which ticked me off.

The tempo in Surrender to Love is more sluggish than the other Rogers books I’ve encountered, even the profoundly introspective The Wildest Heart. The pacing plods on.

It turned around after Part Two, but it was rough when a book doesn’t have not much happening for the first 200 pages. Alexa gets involved in a few scandals and then marries an older husband who brings her to the “Temple of Venus” to catch a naughty peep show or two.

She is soon widowed and goes to England to take society by storm.

Eventually, I saw where Rogers was going with the plot; it’s a tale of a woman who defies the stifling conventions of the Victorian Era through her overt sexuality.

I wondered if Rogers was ever a fan of Mexican telenovelas. The hidden family secrets, brutish hero, and spunky heroine reminded me of Alondra, which was about a “beautiful, rebellious girl, with very independent and progressive views for that time” (i.e., she has sex with other men besides the hero) who looks and acts just like Alexa.

rosemary rogers bodice rippers — The cast of the Mexican telenovela *Alondra.*

Random Observations on Surrender to Love

All the Viscounts of this-and-that running around got confusing. But at least they weren’t Dukes!

Nicholas Dameron was too nebulous, too enigmatic for a hero, which is unusual for me to criticize. Despite learning the history of his first wife, I didn’t understand him at all.

As always, Rogers drew upon themes of women’s liberation. This time it came on a bit thick.

Yes, Alexa, we get it. Being a woman in the 19th century was smothering and oppressive. However, she was part of the wealthy upper class, plus beautiful & widowed. Alexa had privileges that the average woman of her time did not share.

Alexa’s rash impetuosity was a major flaw. She never thought about her actions first. She was capricious and blamed her troubles on outside forces.

Nobody forced her to move to London and deal with the repressive London ton, but she had to have her “revenge” on Nicholas for ruining her in Ceylon.

Sure, Alexa, it was revenge you were after.

The world was that woman’s oyster, but she had a hankering for geoduck:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic — *That’s a shellfish. What did you think it was?*

The first two hundred pages could have been condensed to half that amount. The ending was weird (although not the “trial” and a whipping scene, which was awesome). One moment Alexa is engaged to Charles, her consummation with him is glossed over, and then she ends up married to Nicholas.

Happy ending, I guess?

Final Analysis of Surrender to Love

Surrender to Love wasn’t Rosemary Roger’s best romance. She’s written far better.

Strong characterization, a staple of her works, is missing here. The heroine was a manic mess. Nicholas, the hero, was too distant and mysterious to be appreciated.

The villains weren’t exciting. Although I liked Alexa’s evil grandma, she was the Diet Coke of evil: just one calorie, not evil enough. Same opinion of the Marquess. But as long as I kept imagining Mexican actress Beatriz Sheridan as the evil Dowager Marchioness, I had a good time with that particular villainess.

I would have given Surrender to Love a less than favorable rating but settled on three stars because the pluses slightly outweighed the negatives.

But, oh, those annoying italics made it difficult.

3 Stars

Rating Report Card
Plot	3
Characters	2.5
Writing	3
Chemistry	3.5
Fun Factor	3
Cover	2.5
Overall:	2.9

Synopsis

Under the midnight moon of Ceylon, on the night of her debutante ball at the Governor’s palace, Alexa Howard met her cousin, Nicholas Dameron. And in the sardonic curl of his hard, sensuous lips, in the commanding arrogance of his eyes, Alexa beheld the fierce, implacable passion that would render her helpless to the trembling slavery of desire…

Every kind of love a woman can be made to feel…
Within the golden softness of Alexa’s alluring gentility flowed the insatiable fires of an innocent woman’s awakening to lvoe — and the fury of a betrayed woman’s lust for revenge. Through the nightworlds of Naples, Rome, Paris and London, she was pursued by the man who heartlessly wanted her beauty. But her soul was possessed by the man whose touch was unbearable ecstasy, whose cruelty was ravishing torment, whose tenderness was passion’s fulfillment. Nicholas Dameron had taken her virtue and mocked her pride. But his love was the offering of every pleasure a woman has ever dared to dream of…
Surrender to Love by Rosemary Rogers

Historical Romance Review: Pirate’s Angel by Marsha Bauer

Leave a reply

SPOILER ALERT ⚠

5 Stars

The Book

First of all, I love the original Pirate’s Angel Zebra Heartfire cover, but man-oh-man, have you taken a look at the e-book version? Authors, why are you doing this to your books? Lots of folks love to mock old-school covers and Fabio, but there are e-book covers that make clinches look like Rembrandts. Even a plain black cover with white Comic Sans font would be sexier than whatever the heck that new version is.

Besides loving the original Pino cover, I loved just about everything else in Marsha Bauer’s 1991 Zebra Heartfire pirate romance. Sure, the heroine is a two-faced hussy, as she has a dependable guy back home whom she plans on marrying while she enthusiastically partakes in lovemaking sessions with the hero. But I couldn’t blame Ivy. Drake was wildly attracted to her.

Plus, he was hot. (God, I’m so shallow.)